


Miscalculations

by schifaroo



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Bisexual Quentin Coldwater, But mostly angst, Depressed Quentin Coldwater, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Bi-erasure, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Minor Quentin Coldwater/Alice Quinn, Minor Quentin Coldwater/Julia Wicker, Pre-Season4Ep6, canon adjacent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:27:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23777596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schifaroo/pseuds/schifaroo
Summary: A short look into how past experiences might have colored Quentin's reaction to the Monster.
Relationships: Quentin Coldwater & Julia Wicker, Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Comments: 6
Kudos: 43





	Miscalculations

**Author's Note:**

> While perhaps not strictly canon, I've been musing on some possible connections between Quentin's past and his Season 4 present and thinking about this interpretation of the characters' actions for awhile. Hope you enjoy this small snippet as my first offering to the AO3 Queliot community!

The thing that made middle school bearable for young Quentin Coldwater was that he and his best friend Julia Wicker found they had the same taste in boys. They could giggle for hours about the cute upperclassmen with lockers down the row from theirs, or about the group of boys who sat at the table opposite theirs at lunch. It was different for Julia, though. Julia seemed to have no problem actually approaching the cute boys, making friends, or getting invited to the movies. Quentin tagged along, but he often couldn’t figure out how to get what he was thinking in his head out of his mouth. Even when his vocal chords did work, it was harder still to make sure the words came out in the right order. 

It wasn’t that his dad or mom or Julia weren’t supportive--they were--he just didn’t know the _how_ of anything in the same way that Julia seemed to know. He lived vicariously through her when she walked away from parties with triumphant spin the bottle stories. He cheered her on from the sidelines when she got her first boyfriend and comforted her when they broke up two weeks later.

High school got harder. There were more crush-worthy boys, more parties with more risque games, more opportunities for Julia to flourish and for Quentin to fall to the side. There were times he didn’t mind. Sometimes he didn’t hate himself for it. Occasionally, he believed Julia, who confidently told him it was okay if he was an introvert and reassured him it was okay if he took his time figuring things out. It was rare, but there were times he could even bring himself to believe his dad, who would simply hug him and tell him he wasn’t broken.

Most of the time, though, Quentin wished he was someone else. He wished he didn’t find himself grasping at straws so often. He wished love could be easy, or at least that friendship could be. He wished he didn’t feel so different from the rest of the world. He wished he wasn’t a failure. He wished he wasn’t trapped. He wished he felt strong and worthy and able instead of weak and pathetic and lost.

One day, it was too much. His dad found him on the floor of their guest bathroom, clutching an empty pill bottle. Quentin woke up hours later with a pumped stomach that burned every time he inhaled or coughed. A blanket of shame settled over him so heavy Quentin knew he wouldn’t be able to shake it for a long, long time. He sobbed, and that hurt too. He pleaded with his dad, with the doctors, with the nurses for help. They offered it, so he finished the rest of that school year in the hospital.

Julia came to visit him when she could, without even a hint of reluctance. She was his best friend; she understood him; she cared for him; she was nice to him. At first he explained away the thrill of seeing her peek her head into his hospital room as mere excitement to see a friendly face. When he was released from the hospital, he was sure the extra bit of fondness he felt towards her was just gratitude that she hadn’t abandoned him out of caution or fear. But as he returned to high school the following year, he found that while he couldn’t pinpoint _when_ his daydreams about Noah in physics or William in English were replaced with daydreams about Julia, he couldn’t dismiss the shift either. 

Quentin asked her about it exactly once, during their senior year. She slapped his shoulder good-naturedly and gave him a soft reprimand to not give up on men so quickly. She assured him he was bound to find a cute boy after they left home, maybe even the love of his life. That was that, as far as he ever let on.

Julia tried to help him as best she could once they graduated and moved on to college; always trying to set him up on dates with her gay friends, or dragging him along with her to raging parties where the booze was supposed to help him relax. A few one-night stands was all he could really muster, though even the women he occasionally hooked up with weren’t much of a palate cleanser. He only had eyes for Julia, even if Julia didn’t understand it. So, he remained her devoted best friend, dutifully hating all her ex-boyfriends with supportive vehemence and watching any current boyfriends for even the slightest misstep. 

Suffice to say, when Quentin met Alice Quinn and started to feel that perhaps they could be something more, he was desperate to not make the same mistake twice. It was too late before he realized how much he miscalculated.

_Q, c’mon. I love you but, you have to know that...that’s not me and that’s definitely not you...not when...not when we have a choice._

Quentin told himself he knew how to play his part after that. He knew he would survive being happy for Eliot in his future conquests; he knew he would survive watching Eliot eventually settle down with someone else; he knew he would survive being Eliot’s devoted best friend because that’s what Quentin knew how to do. 

He’d miscalculated again. Quentin failed to anticipate feeling called to make a sacrifice to save magic and then having to watch as his best friend tried to save him from it. He failed to anticipate having to watch the love of his life speak to him with malicious, distant, unfamiliar eyes. He failed to anticipate needing to defend his other-lifetime lover from their own friends, as they plotted against the Monster possessing him. Most of all, Quentin failed to anticipate the way his heart shuddered to a halt at seeing the Monster trying to kill Eliot the same way he had once tried to kill himself.

After the brief power struggle, after picking up the scattered pills one by one, straightening the lamp and returning the bathroom drawers’ contents to their rightful places, Julia wanted to talk. She was worried, she was scared, and she very lightly, very subtly hinted at understanding why Quentin had reacted as recklessly and boldly as he had. For a moment, Quentin felt trapped. He’d have to admit to her how yet again he’d failed to convince someone he loved them; he’d have to admit to her how much his failure had destroyed him; he’d have to say, out loud, how his regret ate away at him every aching moment he sat next to Eliot’s body without Eliot there. But then, he realized: she just thought it was about the pills.

It should have felt like relief, knowing that his secrets and his shame would remain his. Instead, the aftertaste lingered, sharp and bitter like poison. The wordless suggestion echoed through his mind all through the evening, all through another sleepless night and all through the next day: even Julia thought he and Eliot were just friends. It was blood in the water for his demons, signaling to them how much each dreadful hour weakened his resolve to fight them. The only thing that staved them off was the silent promise he made to himself with every breath: that he would get Eliot back, in one piece, even if it cost him everything. That would be enough for Quentin: just to have Eliot back, alive, well, whole. If that was all he could ask for, he would take it.

Most of the time, Quentin let the thought end there. But sometimes, in the middle of the night, if Quentin was alone and he could have some silence and tentative peace, he allowed himself a sidelong glance at the sheltered part of his heart that still knew how to hope, despite everything. There he would see the small, fervent, desperate, bleeding hope that maybe, by giving this much, and fighting this hard, maybe Eliot would start to believe him. Maybe peaches and plums meant something. Most nights, he was too afraid to look at the hope too long. Some nights, it made the strange way the Monster abused Eliot’s melodic voice that much worse. But other nights, he felt nothing but the burning need to know. He needed to ask, just once more, before accepting Eliot’s answer. Those nights, the hope fueled him, and kept him focused on what mattered and why it mattered. He had to get Eliot back; there was no alternative.


End file.
